The Flying Sorcerers

by David Gerrold

  “But we’re so high above the water. Surely there’s no danger now.”

  “I still have four balloons to refill. Where will I get the water I need if you will pull the plug?”

  “Oh,” I said. I let go of it quickly.

  “Wait a minute,” Shoogar said suddenly, “You can’t use that water for your hydrogen gas. That’s ballast water. It makes us go down, not up.”

  “Shoogar, it’s water. Just water,” Purple said patiently.

  “But it’s symbological nonsense to think that the same water can make us go in two directions!” And then Shoogar could only make gulping sounds. For Purple had casually dipped up a double handful of water from the bottom of the boat, and was drinking it. Drinking the ballast!

  Shoogar choked m impotent rage; he tottered off.

  “Why don’t you go sit down too?” Purple suggested to me. “Let me worry about the boat.”

  “All right,” I shrugged and sat down on a bench. it was cold and wet like everything else on the Cathawk. From the stern came the sounds of damp rigging being pulled and stretched. Purple was just starting to fill another windbag.

  We sailed on through the dark, shivering and miserable. Wilville and Orbur pumped and chanted. Purple filled the balloons. Shoogar and I froze.

  A wind came up then and started pushing us north. Any Other time we might have appreciated it. In this sodden darkness though, it only set our teeth to chattering. Wilville and Orbur gave up on their pedaling then — it was too cold to continue. They huddled at the wet bottom of the boat with the rest of us. After a while even Purple joined us. Being wrapped with cold soaking blankets was still better than being exposed to the biting upper air.

  Or should have been. My fingers were so numb, I could not even pull the icy cloth tighter about myself.

  Sleep was impossible. I muttered constantly. “There’s no such thing as warm, Lant. It’s all your imagination. you’ll never be warm again. You’d better get used to freezing, Lant —”

  When Ouells — bright blue and tiny — snapped up over the eastern horizon an hour later, we were still damp with chill, and there was a thin layer of frost on everything in the boat.

  The morning was crisp, but rapidly warming.

  The sea was a plate of restless blue far below. We seemed higher than we’d ever been in the airship. The edge of the world was almost curved.

  Purple said that was an optical illusion. We were much too low to see any real curvature. Gibberish again.

  We stretched the blankets across the rigging to dry them in the sun. Our togas as well. Even Purple shed his impact suit and stretched out against the bright morning.

  The wind continued to blow steadily north, and Wilville and Orbur were resting on their outrigger cots.

  I splashed around in the front of the boat, looking for any foodstuffs that either Purple or the water had missed. I found a half of a sour melon and glumly split it with Shoo-gar. None of the rest wanted any.

  We still had water in the airboat, up to our knees, but Purple refused to let us dump it. “Look how high we are already,” he said. “There’s no point to throwing this water away. Later, when the windbags leak a little more, then we’ll need it. Besides, I may want to make some more hydrogen first.”

  “Do you have enough electrissy?”

  He smiled sheeplishly. “I — uh, I sort of miscalculated when I filled windbags. I didn’t realize they still had as much hydrogen in them as they did. I have enough power left to fill three airbags. Or to fill four if I don’t want to call my flying egg down.” He looked about him. “That should be enough. We should have at least four days of flying time left before the balloons are too weak again and I’m out of power. If we can’t make it by then, we’ll never make it.”

  We sailed on hungrily; and steadily, steadily north.

  We fought crosswinds for a while, but always the general direction of our motion was north.

  We had lost our course line of hills under the water sometime during the thunderstorm. That we had been unable to find it again didn’t worry Purple as much as it might have. He still had measuring devices, and he charted our course by them.

  When I asked him about it, he shrugged it off, “Well, it seemed like a good idea, Lant — but I think those hills of yours are too deeply submerged now to be seen. Maybe we’ll be lucky though, and see them again when we get over shallower water.”

  The next day, he recharged the windbags, leaving himself only enough power to fill two bags completely until full, or one windbag and a call to his flying egg.

  Toward evening we finally pulled the plug and drained away the knee-high water which had been our companion for the last two days. “I had thought his trip was going to be over water,” Shoogar grumbled, “not through it.”

  Purple grinned as he watched the water spill away. We were too high to see if we were rising, but the feel of the craft told us that we were. He said, “But it was obvious, Shoogar, we should have thought of it sooner — always keep a quantity of water in the boat. It helps us to balance the craft so that it doesn’t rock so much when we move. It’s there for re-charging the airbags — we never have to go down to the water any more. And we can use it as ballast too.”

  “I tell you that that’s nonsense!” Shoogar exploded. “Ballast, drinking water, gas-making water, wash water — What kind of a spell is it when you arbitrarily change the name of the object to suit your needs?”

  And he stamped off to the bow to sulk, his sandals making wet squishy sounds as he went.

  He was still there when darkness came, peering forward at the sky and chanting a moon-bringer spell.

  It was Orbur who spotted our course line again. Far off to the left, a lighter-colored patch of sea could be seen.

  We were lower now, despite the dumping of six bags of water. Purple said it was due to the airbags leaking faster than before. They were stretching, he said, and the seams weren’t as strong as he had hoped. He ordered the boys to come about and head the boat in a course that would eventually bring us over the spine of hills again.

  I chewed thoughtfully on a lump of moldy hardbread. That the hills were visible under the water again meant that we were nearing shallower seas. Soon we might be over land, and our journey would be over.

  The windbags above were taut, but rippling slightly in the wind. Soon the ripplings would increase some more, folds of cloth would hang loose, the bags would droop heavily — and all the while we would descend lower and lower.

  Purple began emptying the last of the ballast bags — all except two which we would save for drinking water. Shoogar moaned, when he said that. The boat rose some as he dumped the ballast, but not by any significant amount. “Well, that’s it,” he said. “We make it on the gas we’ve got left, or not at all.”

  Wilville and Orbur pumped silently and steadily. They no longer chanted happily while they worked. Rather, they seemed almost in a trance, trying to endure from one moment to the next. They had both developed sores and blisters on their hands and buttocks. Purple had sprayed them each with a salve, but then they had gone back out onto the out-riggers, and I suspected that the salve would not do much good.

  We took up our position over the spine of hills and pumped steadily north. I wobbled to the front of the boat and joined Shoogar. Although the red sun was still bright in the west, he wanted to miss not a moment of the impending darkness. “The moons,” he chortled happily, “the moons should be visible soon.”

  I ignored him. I was not so much concerned with what was above as with what was ahead. Was that a line of narrow darkness on the forward horizon? It was too dark to tell.

  I called it to Purple’s attention. He shouldered roughly past Shoogar and peered eagerly forward. “Umph,” he said, “I can’t see.”

  “Use your flashlight,” I suggested.

  “No, Lant, it hasn’t enough power to reach that far.”

  “Attach it to your big battery. That still has some power left in it.”


  He smiled. “I could do that, but it hasn’t got enough power left in it to turn the flashlight up that bright. Besides, blue dawn will be here in slightly more than an hour. If it is land, we’ll see it then.”

  The red sun faded away then, and we throbbed impatiently through the darkness, only the steady sssssss of the bicycles reminding us that we were moving. Purple paced restlessly in the back of the boat, while Shoogar chanted steadily in the bow.

  I tried to sleep, but couldn’t.

  Morning snapped up over the east and as one, Purple and I rushed forward. Wilville was already crying, “Land! I can see it! Land! We’ve made it! We’ve made it!”

  “Keep pedaling,” Purple shouted. “Keep pedaling!”

  We were lower now — much lower — the airbags were not holding their hydrogen as long as they used to, and we were only a few manheights above the water.

  It mattered not. Far ahead of us we could see the craggy shore of the North, and behind it, jagged hills rising toward a familiar mountain range — The Teeth Of Despair.

  “Oh, pump, Wilville, pump!” cried Purple. “Pump, Orbur, pump!” He peered so far forward out of the boat, I thought he was ready to leap out and swim for land. “Just a little bit farther!”

  The sea below us was mottled and ugly. We could see jagged reefs below us — and here and there a whirlpool. All slid past, but we were sinking lower and lower.

  Purple noticed it too. “What the —” He moved back inside the boat and began tugging experimentally at the rigging.

  “One of the bags must have a leak!” He started climbing upward. “Is it this one?” He pulled at a rope. “No. Maybe it s that one. Yes, the seam there — see it?”

  I looked. Just above him, one of the airbags had a narrow slit of darkness in its belly. Purple took a step higher in the rigging.

  And then it happened.

  The seam ripped wide open — a great stretching and tearing sound. The bag folded open, and the boat gave a sudden lurch as it collapsed. Huge lengths of aircloth began falling across the rigging. Wilville and Orbur screamed.

  “Throw some ballast! Throw some ballast!” cried Shoogar.

  He ran frantically about the boat, but we only had two ballast bags. He pulled at them furiously.

  “No!” shouted Purple. “That won’t do any good. There’s not enough!” He half climbed, half fell from the rigging.

  “Lant, get my airmaker!”

  “Where is it?”

  “In the back of the boat, I think! Hurry!”

  We were losing altitude fast. And I could see why he wanted me to hurry. A swirling whirlpool lay below us, hungry and sucking. It was huge.

  Purple already had a windbag nozzle untied and waiting above an open sack of water. He grabbed the airmaker and shoved its funnel into the airhose and into the water, both in one motion. He snapped his battery on. The windbag swelled frantically, strove to rise. The airboat gave a lurch.

  Purple flung away the empty water bag. “Give me the other.” Shoogar shoved it into position before the words were out of his mouth, and again Purple plunged his wires and funnel into it. Again the windbag puffed with a mixture that was half hydrogen, half throw-away gas.

  We could hear the roar of the whirlpool now — and little else. We were less than two manheights above the water. Wilville and Orbur were frantically pulling their airpushers up so they would not get caught in the maelstrom below.

  But we had stopped our descent!

  The great whirling walls of water slipped thunderously past us — crashing and black. We could feel the wet mist I across our faces. Foam sprayed the beat.

  “The mouth of Teev,” whispered Shoogar. “It appears at the end of every summer. As the waters recede, it sucks up everything within its reach, men, boats, trees, rocks —”

  “But summer isn’t over yet,” said Purple. His face was I white, and the bones of his knuckles showed where he gripped the railing.

  “No,” said Shoogar, “but it’s starting to wane. By summer’s end the Mouth will be much bigger than this. Its roar will be audible for miles.”

  Purple peered nervously backward. The dark thundering water was slipping steadily behind us. Wilville and Orbur lay clenched across their outriggers.

  “I never thought I’d live to see it that close,” Shoogar said weakly.

  Purple grunted thoughtfully. He was looking at his airmaker.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “My battery. I think it’s dead.”

  “What? No! Again?”

  “I think so.” He disconnected the battery and shook it experimentally. “Look, the dial doesn’t even light up. We used up all the power we had.”

  “We needed it. We’d be in the Mouth of Teev if we hadn’t made more gas.”

  “We could have swum for it. Or cut the boat loose and hung onto the ropes! Or — anything —” He put his face in his hands and made sounds of pain. Then suddenly he stood up, picked up the battery and — for an endless moment I thought he was going to fling it overboard and perhaps follow it.

  Instead he called briskly, Wilville! Orbur! Back on the bicycles. We’re so close to land, you don’t want to quit now!”

  I could see that he was only acting. He didn’t want the others to see how deeply he felt his loss. He pretended to busy himself checking the rigging, but several times I caught him staring off into the sky with a faraway look.

  The boys unslung the windmakers again and Shoogar began to chant with them — the I Think Icon, a fast chant, strong and purposeful.

  The shore line loomed ever nearer — the surf was white and foaming; Shoogar steadily increased the pace of the chant. Even so, we kept sinking lower and lower toward the water — not as fast as before, but it was apparent that the airbags were no longer as tight as they had been.

  The water slipped past us, the windmakers dipping through the higher waves; then cutting through the swells themselves, becoming visible only in the troughs between the waves; and at last, no longer visible at all. The outriggers hung low along the sides of the boat, and pushed us through the surf. The balloons hung in silent stillness overhead, and the sea splashed below. An occasional spray of wet foam came through the rigging.

  Shoogar interrupted his chanting to call, “Lant, look! Do you recognize where we are heading? Come look!”

  I climbed forward. Ahead lay a bleak and forbidding landscape of jagged black and brown. It was streaked with gray and purple, and ominously stained whites. All was pitted and scarred. Here and there a flash of red testified to a scorch-blossom’s attempt to take root, but little more was visible. Except — was that the fire-blackened shell of a wild housetree? It looked like a gaunt hand frozen in an anguished skyward grasp.

  “Lant! It is the Cove of Mysteries — or what’s left of it. We are not far from the old village, just a few miles south of it.”

  Purple came up behind me, a clicking device in his hands. I had noticed it on his belt before, but he had never explained its use. Now he tapped it experimentally and frowned. At last he smiled, “The level of — “ He used a demon word here, “is not as high as I thought it would be, not much higher than the normal background level. Certainly not dangerous, anyway. It will be safe to walk in this area.”

  The boat was splashing through the waves now, and Purple directed the boys to head for a place where the ground sloped gently into the water. We could see one not too far ahead, and the boys shifted direction to make for it.

  Purple peered ahead. “Lant, how far are we from Critic’s Tooth?”

  “Well, it used to be over there, Purple,” I pointed. A few cracked, half-melted slabs of rock marked a conspicuous gap in the mountains to the north.

  He misunderstood. “That peak is Critic’s Tooth?”

  “No, that’s Viper’s Bite — one of the lesser foothills before Critic’s Tooth. Critic’s Tooth is gone.”

  “Oh.”

  The whole range of jagged mountains is called the Teeth of Despair. Cri
tic’s Tooth was one of the sharpest peaks. The region is ruled by the mad demon, Peers, who gnashes and gnarls mightily. He attacks natives and strangers alike. We should approach no closer, lest he blame us for the damage to his Teeth.”

  Purple was looking at his ticking thing again, waving it and pointing it. “A good idea.”

  We bounced through the surf. There was a gentle bump as the nose of the boat slid up onto the sand. We had reached the northern shore.

  “The Cathawk has landed!” shouted Wilville. The Cathawk has landed!”

  As one person we jumped for shore, Shoogar and Purple and I scrambling over each other.

  At last we stood on solid ground again. The land was desolate, mostly naked rock, blood-colored in the westering light of Ouells and the overhead glow of Virn, but it was solid. No more standing in air, no more standing in water. No more standing in both at the same time.

  If ever I returned safely home, I swore, I would never again risk my life in so foolhardy a venture. The skies were not friendly.

  Wilville and Orbur had slung up the airpushers and pulled the Cathawk high on the shore, out of reach of the lapping waves. Immediately they began filling the ballast bags, and the interior of the boat as well, with a low level of water. They began checking the rigging, the bicycle frames, and even the watertightness of the boatframe and the balloons. They acted as if they expected the Cathawk to fly again. How, I could not imagine. The gasbags were all limp from leakage, and I did not trust the seams on several of them. They still extended upward from their ropes, but none were very determined about it.

  How they hoped to refill the windbags, I did not know.

  Shoogar was walking around and chuckling to himself. “I won’t have to acquaint myself with the local spells or the local gods at all. I can start as soon as I check the moons…” and he wandered off toward a distant blackened hill, carrying his spell kit.

  A strange black crust covered everything. It shattered when one stepped on it and left miniscule shards, or stinging dust which went up in wisps before the surly wind. Curious, I crunched across the ground toward the hill where Purple stood. He was attaching his big battery to another of his endless spell devices.